How to Create a Professional YouTube Channel for Your Business

For businesses of any kind, being on YouTube has become a game-changer. We are certainly big fans of the platform here at Yum Yum Videos!

But with hours worth of video being uploaded to this video platform every minute and professional-level productions being shared every day, you need to know how to create a YouTube channel that stands out and catches viewers’ attention.

So, I decided to develop this guide to help you build your online presence on this platform. From how to set up a YouTube channel and personalize it according to your brand to what to do afterward to obtain consistent results, I’ll tackle every step you have to go through to get started on YouTube on the right foot 😉.

Let’s go!

1. Create A YouTube Business Account

In order to join YouTube, you will need a Google account. I know you probably already have your own personal account, but in my experience, it’s always better to create a new one specifically for your company. That way, you can keep everything business-related in one place and avoid mixing it with personal mail and even with spam, for example.

So, once you have your business’ Google account set up, go to YouTube’s homepage. On the avatar icon in the top-right corner of the screen, you’ll see the option “Create a channel” in the drop-down bar:

You can either use your YouTube account as a business profile or as a personal one. Unless your company is specifically related to you as a brand, it’s better to create your channel as a dedicated professional account. So, click on “Use a business or other name”. This will lead you to a screen where you can enter the name you want to associate with your channel.

Easy, right? But we’re just getting started 😉. Stay tuned to learn how to set up a YouTube channel that perfectly represents your brand and draws customers in.

2. Establish Your Voice and Channel Branding

On YouTube, first impressions are fundamental because users have many, many options to choose from when they’re looking for a video. So, if you want to stand out and attract your target audience, you need to establish elements that help visually define your channel and align with your branding.

In simple words, you need to learn how to create a YouTube channel that will make viewers interested in your content at a glance. To archive that, you have to edit your channel’s creatives. Go to the “Customize Channel” option on your channel’s sidebar, or just click on your icon.

You’ll find that there are two types of profile images: the channel icon and the banner.

• The Channel icon represents your YouTube account avatar. It’s a small 800×800 pixels image, so it should be a simple and easy-to-recognize picture. You can use your business logo or anything with your brand’s colors that’ll make you identifiable.

• Your Channel banner is a 2,560×1440 pixels image that’ll appear at the top of your channel. You can use it to grab your viewer’s attention, show a creative side to your brand, or simply convey any message you want. Because it’s bigger than your icon, you’ve more freedom to personalize your banner according to your business’s needs.

• It’s also fundamental to include a trailer. Create a video that introduces first-time viewers to your channel and outlines the type of content they can expect from you. It should be less than a minute long—just a brief sample of the kind of content you’ll be sharing or what your business is about.

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3. Fill In the “About” Section

In order to continue personalizing your channel, it’s time to fill in the “About” section. The goal here should be to explain to visitors what your business does. You can introduce your channel’s mission, write about what content you’ll be uploading, or just put up a welcome message.

This is the place to include relevant links to your social media accounts and other channels where you’d like the traffic you’ve gained from YouTube to land. That way, these visitors can become long-term followers of your brand.

You can add up to five links to your social platforms, with customizable hyperlink texts of up to 30 characters. YouTube will add these links to your channel banner, making them more accessible to viewers. 

4. Understand Your Audience

As I’ve mentioned, YouTube is a powerful inbound tool, but there are tons of competitors constantly uploading content that works against yours. To appeal to your viewers, you need to know how to create a YouTube channel that catches the attention of your target audience.

As a business, you’ll probably want to talk a lot about your products and how they can change people’s lives. But YouTube is all about entertainment! So, a word of advice: don’t just create content about your brand. Find what your target audience is interested in, and target that. 

You can share educational or explainer videos, inform your audience about recent events in the industry, or teach them the ins and outs of a certain event. Or even share amusing behind-the-scenes footage that reveals a new, easily relatable side of your brand. 

The goal is to post videos that tackle your viewers’ pain points and address their unique interests. Besides entertaining your audience, you’ll be showcasing your brand authority on subjects related to your industry, increasing the chances they will want to look into your company.

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5. Set Up Featured Channels and Start Building a Community

It’s easy to forget that YouTube is a social network, and that’s why an important aspect of your video marketing strategy should be to build a community around your channel.

A great way to do so is to change your privacy settings and set your subscriptions and “liked” videos to ‘public’. That way, these videos will appear on your channel, showing your viewers content from other creators that you’re interested in and find relevant.

Of course, you shouldn’t guide your customers to your direct competitors. Instead, try to find creators that complement the content you’re publishing without reaching for your same audience. 

For example, we’re a video animation company, right? So, leading our viewers to other marketing companies isn’t something we want. Instead, it’d be better to share awesome videos created by brands like Apple or subscribe to educational channels related to video production. The goal is to show you have an eye open to what’s happening around you.

Also, avoid linking to any material that could be controversial or unrelated to your business, and keep your channel strictly professional. If you want to “like” the most recent Harry Styles video (hey, I’m not judging!), it’s better to use a personal account. Unless your business is in the music industry, of course!

6. Optimize for Search 

We can’t forget about SEO techniques, especially on a guide on how to create a YouTube channel for business! Did you know that YouTube has become one of the most used search engines out there? To take advantage of that, you need to make sure to post search-optimized videos.

When you’re uploading a new video, YouTube asks you to fill in a title, description, and tags. These elements are crucial for making your video easily discoverable, so don’t take them lightly. Make sure to include keywords related to the content in each one of them—without stuffing, of course. And don’t forget to say your target keyword in your video!

One of the best tips for video SEO is to add captions and transcripts to your content. Besides making them more accessible, it allows the crawl bot to properly assess the content inside. That way, there are more chances that when users search for something you’ve addressed in the piece, your video will appear.

7. Analyze Your Results

This can’t be a good guide on how to create a YouTube channel for businesses if I don’t give you some insight into how to track and analyze metrics. Once you’ve set up your channel and got the hang of posting content consistently, it’s time to look back and see what’s working—and what isn’t.

YouTube provides analytics for all of your videos as well as for your channel as a whole. It provides data on the people who are watching your content, which pieces are performing better and why, and even how visitors get to your channel.

Some valuable metrics to keep in mind are:

• Audience retention: This metric allows you to learn which moments of your video were especially effective in holding your viewer’s attention. With this data, you can optimize your future content, delivering key pieces of information on those moments to improve engagement.

How to find it: Go to Analytics, Overview, and click on the video you want to see and gain insight from.

• Impressions Click-Through-Rate: This metric tells you how many people saw your video’s thumbnail and decided to watch the video. It’s great to measure the effectiveness of your visual elements and titles, and to figure out what your audience is most interested in!

How to find it: Go to Analytics, Reach, and there you’ll find a tab with the name “Impressions Click-Through-Rate.”

• How viewers found your content: It tells you where your viewers came from, be it YouTube’s search engine, other videos, outside sources, or even playlists, giving you valuable insight into the distribution channels that are most effective in reaching your audience. 

How to find it: Once again, go to Analytics, Reach, and then scroll down to find your traffic sources.

Wrapping Up

Creating a professional YouTube channel for your business isn’t rocket science—it’s just a ton of work!

I’m just kidding 😜. Even though you need to make an effort to build an effective presence on YouTube, the results are worth it. Besides bringing in a big flow of traffic, video content allows you to reach your audience in an interesting and engaging way—after all, if there weren’t any benefits, you wouldn’t have so many channels to compete with out there!

I hope that this guide helped you understand how to create a YouTube channel that stands out from the rest. Now, the next step is to start posting content and keep a constant eye on your metrics to develop videos that your audience is looking for.

Good luck!